Feast of St Michael the Archangel

By Joe Espiritu

Ok Mac, its fiesta time. A few days from now will be the feast of St. Michael the Archangel. It will not only be the Jagnaanons, who will celebrate this religious event hut also those from Clarin and San Miguel, Bohol . Farther away, those from Iligan City and Argao, Cebu will be doing the same. Here, the fiesta will not be the same as a few years before, when Jagna celebrated its 375^th anniversary, but it will be as colorful as well.

 There is one thing peculiar in a Jagnaanon. This is; if he cannot be always in Jagna, he will bring Jagna along with him. In any part of the world, where two or more Jagnaanons live, they will celebrate the fiesta on September 29, Sometimes, since they are working, they will celebrate the event on a Sunday nearest that date.  Before that, they will hold a nine-day novena in the house of one of the board of directors and on the day, a priest who is a Jagnaanon will celebrate the mass.

 One of the oldest organizations loyal to the patron saint of Jagna is the Pundok Jagnaanon of Metro Manila. This group is made up of Jagna expats, who had left town years ago that the younger ones here do not know them anymore, and the second-generation expats, who had never been to Jagna. Once, when Padre Saro was the parish priest of Sta Mesa, which church is near the old Stop and Shop the fiesta mass was celebrated there. The party was in Aroma Café in Sta Cruz, Manila . This time, the Pundok holds their celebration in the Aberdeen Court in Quezon City. Perhaps they celebrate the mass there too.

 Another group of Jagnaanons, who follow the same observation are those from far away  . They observe their fiesta in the suburbs of Los Angeles or somewhere near San Francisco. We are not sure, whether they are just one organization since Frisco is some eight hours drive from the City of the Angels. Besides, there are more turtogoks in the former particularly around Salinas and Stockton. But turtogoks sure passports to US citizenship of young Filipinas are dying breed. They are replaced by younger, streetwise Pinoys.

 The California expats have one over, the Pundok members of Metro Manila. They observe the sinulog. Perhaps the Pundok members are more inhibited. There was once a sinulog contingent in the Frisco suburbs one fiesta.  The drummer was a CPA from Looc. He must have observed many sinulog presentations here that he was able to drum out the correct beat. The prancing and banging of shields was the same including the recitation of rhymes more often than not irrelevant to the event. Anyway they are appreciated there by the Pinoys and their Americans guests though the latter do not understand a word of what is going on.

 To commemorate the event, T-shirts emblazoned with the patron saint are given away. We have one and there was a story, which goes along with it. An artist was hired by a sponsor to print the image of the archangel on T-shirts to be given away. The sponsor, an excellent example of a TBTK – Tanang – did not pay the agreed price. In the first samples that came out, the devil under the foot of St Michael was sporting the face of the sponsor. The amount must have been correctly paid since the face of the devil in the later versions was darkened out.